


Prompt #17: "Watch your step."

by Xylianna



Series: Xy's 100 Ways Challenge [49]
Category: Final Fantasy XV, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, M/M, One Night Stand, Or Is It?, hurt comfort kinda, mention of past Ignyx, mention of past Janto, mentions of past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-20 13:43:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22184794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xylianna/pseuds/Xylianna
Summary: Forever is a damn long time. Jack goes to a local pub to see if for this part of forever, he can be a little less lonely.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ignis Scientia
Series: Xy's 100 Ways Challenge [49]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1079283
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Prompt #17: "Watch your step."

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping/gifts).



> Happy Birthday [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping)!
> 
> My thanks to beta-san [aliatori](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori)!

People always talked about how great it would be to live forever. All the things they would do, the places they would see. But nobody ever talked about how fucking lonely eternity could be. Watching all your friends grow old and die. Outliving your children. Your grandchildren. Your great-grandchildren.

Jack Harkness tried not to become attached anymore. He had left Torchwood behind him and the members he had served with were dust in their graves. No attachments, no pain, he figured, and usually it worked.

The other nights, like tonight, he’d find himself at the local watering hole, hoping to meet someone that could help him feel less alone for an hour or two.

He was nursing a whiskey, hoping his smiles at the irritated bartender were enough to keep her from hustling him out. She’d get a good tip no matter how small his tab; there was little point in slamming your drinks when you body metabolized the alcohol too quickly to really get good and plastered. That was something that had continued to change the older Jack got; it was morbidly ironic. For most people, their tolerance waned with age, but for Jack it seemed like just another way he was a freak of nature, able to drink an entire bottle solo with no ill effects.

He missed being drunk, dammit. Missed the haze and the fog and the analgesic effect of the booze warming his blood.

“Just tea.” The words were unimportant, but the voice saying them was ghost from the past. Cultured and smooth and reminiscent of three piece charcoal suits set off by jewel tone vests, and blue eyes that always shone with love even when they (rightly) judged his wrong-doing.

But this voice wasn’t shaping lush Welsh vowels, no — it had those crisp British consonants, sharp edges and precise diction. But the timbre of it was… molasses? No, honey? Not quite right, either.

A crisp chardonnay, Jack decided. Not so bitter as to be unpalatable (Jack had an aversion to dry reds) but not overly sweet like a moscato. Layered in flavors and easy on the tongue.

Smirking into his glass at his own thoughts, Jack was unsurprised to feel the surge of desire. After all, that was why he had come to the bar. He drained his whiskey in one go and stood up to approach the stranger with the siren’s voice, realizing that a one night stand with someone who painfully reminded him of his ex — fuck, he was even wearing a suit, though his was black on black, no burst of color, just embroidered skulls of all thing — was probably a horrendously stupid idea.

But he was Captain Jack Harkness. His life was made of stupid ideas.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Jack said with an easy grin, taking the empty seat next to the other man. He let his eyes take a leisurely walk from his ash blonde pompadour to his booted feet and back again, until locking eyes with a verdant regard as crisp and clear as those consonants. Jack’s fingers itched to touch the scarring on his face, jagged lines telling the story of his own battles and serving to make what would have been bland beauty far more interesting. But he kept his hands to himself for now.

“Good evening.” Oh, if only he’d keep talking, that melodic baritone was a delight (and would sound even better strung out and screaming Jack’s name, he wagered). “Can I help you?”

“Boy, I hope so,” Jack laughed, knowing from other lovers’ descriptions that his cerulean eyes were probably sparkling and his face positively lit up with charm. That would be good; he didn’t need his memories casting a shadow on this encounter, so he was careful to keep his true emotions from his face. “Buy you a drink?”

“I have one.” Cool words, but a sardonic quirk to one perfectly manicured eyebrow (the one with the scar, that had been upgraded from ‘want to touch’ to ‘want to lick’). “But I’ll buy you one.” A lascivious smirk canted full lips ( _scar there too, what would it feel like on my mouth? on my cock?_ ) as he suggested, “Give you some way to keep those hands busy.”

Jack could think of a hundred better ways. A thousand. But a drink was good; it would give him time to flirt, to gauge interest, to see if the attraction was reciprocated. “Whiskey neat.”

The stranger signaled to the barkeep, but never took his eyes off Jack’s. “Ignis Scientia.”

“Jack Harkness.” He stuck out a hand, more so out of a growing desperation to feel that porcelain skin against his than any regard for social graces. “ _Captain_ Jack Harkness.”

Ignis took his hand and electricity sparked at the touch. Jack was just grateful his palm wasn’t sweating, he hadn’t felt this off balance around another person in a long time.

Unbidden, a memory of deep blue eyes gone wild and blind with pleasure, of sweat-slicked skin beneath Jack’s mouth.

The bartender chose that moment to deliver Jack’s drink, and he sent a prayer of thanks to all the gods he didn’t believe in at the timing before tossing it back and relishing in the burn; a fair distraction from the searing at his eyes of tears he couldn’t let escape. Not here, not now.

This was supposed to be a goddamn flirtation. Jack had never been a maudlin drunk when he could get blasted, he wasn’t gonna imitate one now.

“Come here often?” He was inwardly cringing before the last syllable left his mouth. Jack met the bartender’s eyes with a pleading look which she correctly interpreted by bringing him another drink.

“My first time.” Ignis sipped at his tea (at least it wasn’t coffee, Jack didn’t think he could handle that) and grimaced. “They don’t know how to make a proper cup here at all.” He set it on the bar and pushed it towards the service side. “You look like you _do_ come here often.” Those green eyes darkened with hidden depths of his own, and Jack felt a sudden surge of kinship with this stranger. “I just… I couldn’t stay at home. Not tonight.”

Jack knew when to press, and this wasn’t it. Maybe today was the anniversary of a failed relationship, or someone’s birthday, or something else entirely. It didn’t take Jack’s millennia of studying human behavior to be able to tell that something about this date had negative connotations for his companion.

Well, that was only fair. They both had baggage and, if Ignis’s hand slipping beneath the table to rest on Jack’s knee was any indication, they both were looking to forget for a while.

“Come home with me?” he asked, deciding maybe this time being direct was better than playing the game.

“Yes.” Ignis laid some money on the table and stood, leaving Jack to immediately regret the loss of that gloved hand on his leg. They exited the bar, the cool evening air refreshing after the stifling heat of a crowded room.

“Watch your step,” Jack said, leading Ignis down the sidewalk.

* * *

Ignis desperately prayed his internal laugher stayed on the inside, but he knew he was one careless gesture away from letting the handsome Jack Harkness see what a broken mess he was. As they walked towards Jack’s home, Ignis was relieved that the other man seemed equally satisfied with solitude; the lapse in conversation gave Ignis the time to pull himself together.

It was almost eerie how much Jack reminded Ignis of Nyx. He wondered if somewhere in the great beyond, Nyx was watching this play out and laughing. If the dead could affect the living, Ignis had no doubts his former lover would find it entirely appropriate to send Ignis some company on this of all nights. The fact that Jack’s easy grin and flirtatious voice made Ignis recall a different pair of vibrant blue eyes and battle-hardened quips would be an added bonus, he thought uncharitably.

No, that wasn’t fair. Nyx was many things, and generous was one of them. Steering a handsome stranger into Ignis’s bed, yes, doing so with the hopes of bitterness and sorrow, no. Besides, the dead couldn’t affect the world anymore. As hard as it still was to believe all these years later, Nyx was gone, and nothing would change that.

So Ignis would strive to forget. He had no doubt that he could find respite and pleasure in Jack’s arms, while reciprocating in kind. It had been a while since Ignis had gone to bed with anyone but himself, but he fancied he could remember a trick or two.

“This is it.” Jack’s words cut into Ignis’s reverie, and he looked up to find a nondescript brick house. “Come on in.”

He followed Jack inside and looked around, feeling his brow furrow as he noticed how incredibly impersonal the residence was. He couldn’t call it a home, not when there wasn’t a single ‘homey’ touch to the place. Furniture in basic brown, no art on the walls, no mail on the counter. The place hardly looked lived in, and Ignis wondered how much time Jack actually spent here.

“Sorry, I know it’s not much.” Jack’s grin was perhaps a shade too bright, as if he hoped his beaming smile would suffice to decorate the room. “I don’t have much company. But, I do have a spare toothbrush if you want to stay the night.”

“Stay the night?” As Ignis parroted the words back he affected a velvety purr. Now _this_ he could do; Ignis had memorized this dance. “Awfully confident, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Jack said cheerfully. He shrugged out of his massive greatcoat and draped it over the back of the sofa. “Want another drink?”

“No, thank you.” Ignis knelt down and began to untie the laces on his government issue boots. While he didn’t wear his entire uniform off duty, the Kingsglaive issue boots were sturdy and didn’t affect the drape of his trousers. It took time to properly break in boots, and Ignis saw no reason to go through the process with two pairs.

“Leave them on,” Jack suggested. Ignis looked up in surprise and felt his cheeks heat in response to the debauched way one side of Jack’s mouth quirked up, the hunger burning in those blue eyes. “The gloves, too.”

“So demanding,” Ignis quipped, in an effort to take back the reins and regain his equilibrium.

“Yeah, and I’m just getting started.” Jack crossed the room with alacrity and brought his mouth against Ignis’s. It was less a kiss and more a clash of lips and tongue — and just the tiniest nip of teeth — before they broke apart. After they separated, Jack lifted a gentle finger to trace the scar on Ignis’s lip with a quiet murmur, “I’ve been wanting to do that since I first saw you.”

Ignis carded his fingers through Jack’s hair, leaving the brown strands in disarray. That kiss had been enough to remind him what he was missing by being voluntarily celebrate, and he was of a mind to move things along.

“If I’m to leave the boots on, I cannot take off my trousers,” he said, nimble fingers tracing down Jack’s cheek and jaw before starting to unbutton his shirt.

“We’ll make do,” Jack said. He slid Ignis’s suit coat off his shoulders, and Ignis stopped divesting the other man of his shirt long enough to shrug out of it.

The next span of time was a blur of sensation. After they were through, Ignis had trouble recalling specific details, aside from bits and pieces. Jack’s eyes rolled back when Ignis flicked his tongue over the head of his cock. Ignis nearly came in his pants from the way Jack lavished attention on his nipples.

But more importantly — more clearly — Ignis recalled how at the moment of his release, Jack had met his eyes with such a soft smile. Tender and sad all at the same time.

Honestly, Ignis gave the man credit for maintaining eye contact. When he himself had pushed Jack over the brink, he’d kept his verdant gaze firmly on Jack’s stomach, for despite how hard he tried to stay in the present, he couldn’t help but fantasize — but wish — that it was Nyx’s cock down his throat.

The bed creaked as Jack stood up. He left the room, and Ignis allowed himself to let out a ragged, shuddering sigh. He sat up on the edge of the bed, looking out the window, the city lights all blurring together as tears filled his eyes.

“Here.” Jack pushed a glass of water into Ignis’s hand. He took it mechanically, not having heard the other man approach. As he drank it, he blinked back the stubborn tide, not wanting to cast a pall on this entire evening with his inability to control his emotions.

“It’s okay, you know.” Jack’s voice was as soft as that earlier smile had been, and just as laden with feeling. “Today’s a hard day for me, too.” The mattress dipped as he sat next to Ignis, laying a hand on his naked thigh in a way that wasn’t carnal at all, but comforting. “You don’t have to talk about it. But I’m not gonna get scared off if you need to let your walls down.”

Ignis turned to look at him, and saw Jack himself was crying, silent tears sliding over the sculpted planes of his face. Anything he had been about to say — some smart ass response or acerbic retort — was lost, the words caught in his throat. Instead, Ignis reached out to wipe away those tears and draw Jack closer.

This time when they kissed, it was warm and gentle. Sensual, yes, but the urgency of before had faded away, replaced with a mutual understanding. And this time, when Ignis came apart, he had eyes wide open and the name on his tongue was Jack.

When they greeted the dawn together, the ghosts of the past had entirely fled. For the first time in a long while Ignis wondered if his solitary days were over, as they scrambled eggs and made coffee. From the shy smiles on Jack’s face, he was thinking much the same thing.

And somewhere, in the world beyond if such a thing existed… Ignis knew Nyx would be smiling, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this cross-fandom angst fest! I appreciate any kudos/comments you leave. <3


End file.
